


Performance and Poignancy

by HathorAroha



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 14:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12323031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HathorAroha/pseuds/HathorAroha
Summary: Belle and the Beast talk about the latter’s past and find a poignant surprise in the library.





	Performance and Poignancy

“Has he always been so…theatrical?” 

Jolted out of his current read on the bench under his favourite tree, the Beast glances up at Belle, who comes to sit down beside him. 

“Come again?” 

“Lumiere. You know, the candle?” 

“Candelabra,” the Beast corrects her automatically. He catches Belle raising an eyebrow at him. He simply looks back at her, a little bemused by the slight exasperation in her eyes. “That is the correct expression.” 

“Yes, Lumiere, the candelabra. Has he always been so, how to put it–”

“Showy?” the Beast suggests, tilting his head that way and that with each suggested synonym.. “Dramatic?  _Melo_ dramatic? Theatrical? What gives you that idea?” 

“Oh I don’t know,” Belle says, recalling all of Lumiere’s antics the first night at the castle. “I have no idea what gave me that impression. Except for his…dramatic pose he struck on my bed when he first showed me my bedroom in the East Wing.”

The Beast makes a strange choking sound. 

“Are you alright?” Belle asks, concerned. 

But when she sees his shoulders shaking, she realises that the odd sound he had been making was suppressed laughter. Composing himself quickly, he turns his head toward her, showing his fangs in a grin, but this time, Belle does not find them as frightening as before. 

“Go on.” 

“Then there was his whole production of providing me dinner in the evening–”

“I thought I had heard something theatrical that night.” 

Belle giggles a little, remembering the moment she had realised that Lumiere was just  _as_ dramatic as the Beast, if perhaps not more so. 

“I seem to recall him telling me the same day about how you get “ _so_ dramatic”.” 

The Beast snorts, his lips pulling up at one corner. “The candelabra doth protest too much.” 

“I think he gets much more dramatic than you.” 

“You think so, do you?” 

“He certainly has a talent for performance, even if he did drag off the whole tablecloth with my meal still on it as he lamented how many years he and the other servants had been–what was it he said–rusting?” 

“Lumiere is a man of many talents and loyalties, but accepting how over-dramatic he can get sometimes? Not among his many gifts.” The Beast’s eyes gaze down at her, looking warm and genuine, but Belle thinks she sees some sadness mixed with memories from dusty decades ago. “But he really does mean well. Really, he does.” 

Belle watches a little bird twittering away to a couple of its avian friends on a branch overhanging the bench. 

“You have very loyal servants,” she observes, “I understand they’ve known you for a long time.” 

The Beast’s smile warms considerably, and fades quickly, looking away from Belle, leaning back on the bench, his eyes too going to gaze at the birds. 

“Since I was a boy,” he confirms, then falls quiet for a minute or so, just sitting with Belle. For once, the snow cocooning the ground in its perpetuity seems beautiful, as though it had fallen from heaven. The ground is not dead–there are branches around with signs of life sprouting from them. It’s almost enough to make him dare to hope. 

Despite the peaceful beauty he gazes upon, when he speaks again, his voice has taken on a wistful sadness. 

“I confess, I fear some day I may forget what they once looked like.”

“The servants?” 

The silence that follows makes Belle’s heart squeeze with compassion in her chest. Reaching over, she lays her hand gently on his paw. Several moments pass before he touches his other paw over hers. 

“Do you not have any paintings of the servants when they were once human?” 

“I confess I do not know.” 

“Then one of them must know, mustn’t they? Surely there are paintings or sketches in the library. Perhaps a sketch book?” 

“I was not much of a painter, I’m afraid. But Mrs Potts, bless her, always loved to paint or draw.” 

Belle gasps in delight, “She does? How wonderful!” 

“If anyone knows where any paintings are, no matter how hidden away they are, it will be her.” 

“Then let’s go ask her. Come on then.” 

Belle slips her hand out from between his and stands up, tightening her cloak around her shoulders, making careful little steps through the snow. The Beast can’t help but feel warmed by her genuine concern as he gets up and joins her as they stroll back inside the castle to look for Mrs Potts, wherever she may be.

Just as the Beast had said, Mrs Potts did know where all her old paintings and sketches had been stored away, hidden in a quiet, private area of the library where her favourite armchair used to be. 

“Watercolours, pencil drawings–those were my favourite forms of drawing!” Mrs Potts tells Belle as they all make their way to the library, “Do you draw yourself, Belle?” 

“Blueprints,” is the reply, “For my inventions.” 

“Inventions! Good heavens, is there anything you cannot do, my dear?” 

“Make as excellent a cup of tea as you do.” 

“Heavens, you’re making me blush–ah, there’s the library!” 

The tea tray rolls ahead of the Beast and Belle, leading the way in. 

“See over there?” Mrs Potts turns her teapot form around, now facing toward a small corner with a little side table. 

“If you look in a small shelf near it, you may find the scrapbooks. Careful, some are very old.” 

Belle, with a little direction, locates the thick scrapbook, pulling it with great care off its home shelf, holding it in two hands, hoping she would not drop anything on the floor. 

“There you are,” Mrs Potts says as the girl sets the scrapbook on the sidetable. “Enjoy and let me know what you think. Perhaps you might show me a few of your drawings too.” 

“They’re just sketches.” 

“Nevertheless, I’m intrigued. Now I’ll leave you two to it.” 

With that, the tea tray rolls away from the pair, leaving them alone with the scrapbook. Belle feels the Beast sidle up next to her, one of his paws coming up as if to touch the book, but hovers in mid-air inches from the spine, as though afraid he would break it should he so much as brush the old tome. Belle smiles up at him, before nodding over at a sofa with enough room for a Beast and Beauty to sit together, poring over old drawings made by Mrs Potts’ hand. She lays the book, still closed, in her lap as the Beast gets comfortable beside her. With warm eyes and smile, she gazes into his own eyes. 

“Ready?” 

“As ready as you are, Belle.” 

She opens the front cover, and she gasps softly on seeing the very first pencil drawing to greet their eyes. Each shading is tender in its creation and the finest crease in the baby’s fist poking out of the blanket that covers it is realised. Belle fancies the blanket so soft-looking she is sure she’d feel the wool with her own fingertips were she to touch the drawing.

“That’s of Chip, isn’t it?” the Beast guesses.

Belle moves her hand away enough that Mrs Potts’ cursive, small handwriting is exposed for them to see. She feels her breath catch in her throat, running her finger under the name. It is not of Chip as a baby after all. 

“ _Prince Adam_ ,” she whispers, aloud, as much to herself as to the Beast sitting in deep silence beside her, so still now, so very still in the light of dusty memories.  

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on my blog (hathor-frozen). 
> 
> Images were taken from screencaps.com/beauty-beast-2017


End file.
